IRELAND IS AMONG European countries with seats on the UN Security Council calling for a meeting over North Korea’s latest missile launches.

Diplomats said yesterday that France, Estonia, Ireland, Norway and Britain asked for a closed-door meeting of the council to be held on Tuesday.

Separately, a UN sanctions committee focused on nuclear-armed North Korea has asked its experts to investigate Pyongyang’s launch of missiles on Thursday, after an urgent request was made by the United States.

The panel is composed of the same 15 countries that sit on the Security Council. North Korea is already under multiple sets of international sanctions for its banned nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.

The hermit state launched two weapons from its east coast on Thursday, with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga calling them ballistic missiles.

It was North Korea’s first substantive provocation since Joe Biden took power as US president in January.

Biden labelled the test a violation of UN resolutions and advised the isolated state against ramping up military testing, warning that “there will be responses if they choose to escalate.”

North Korea threatened a further military build-up in response to Biden’s condemnation.

Ri Pyong Chol, a leading official in North Korea’s missile programme who supervised the test, said the president’s comments had revealed his “deep-seated hostility” to the regime.

“Such remarks from the US president are an undisguised encroachment on our state’s right to self-defence and provocation to it,” Ri said in a statement published by state media outlet KCNA.

© – AFP, 2021